Working with Chance – Shifted Perspective

After thinking about what we have been discussing indeterminacy and working in chance in my conceptual strategies class, I decided to apply it to my independent studies class as well.

In 3D printing, a lot of variables are left to chance. There is no guarantee that your print will be successful. If you print the same object 1,000 times, there are any number of things that will effect the outcome. Ambient temperature, material, hot end temperatures, computer issues, hardware issues, and more can change the outcome of your print.

Case in point:

This is an 18 gallon tote filled with failed prints (going back about a year – there are more that have been thrown away or are in other boxes as well). Some failed due to equipment failure. Some failed due to material failure. Some of them we have no clue as to why they failed.

This box is intended to be run through a “filabot” style machine to reclaim the expended filament. Mind-2-Matter and LaserGnomes try to be as green as possible, so reclaiming spent filament is inline with our business plans. I figured in the meantime, I could do a bit of reclamation myself.

I spent some time digging through the box to create a sculpture from failed and discarded prints. Since we design and print a myriad of things from engineering parts to organic shapes, it was an interesting melange of components to choose from.

We had a number of MegaFire and SlugFire shells that failed for various reasons or were made prior to additional revisions that lead to our finished retail ready products for NERF blasters. We also had a number of failed flowers from another project that we undertook for Valentines Day.